


Till the world stops turning (I will love you)

by Milaley



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Now with accidental poetry, Post-Battle of Winterfell, Post-Episode: s08e03 The Long Night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-15 16:26:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18673300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milaley/pseuds/Milaley
Summary: Only hours before when the alarm sounded her and Gendry had helped each other dress, she had pressed a hurried kiss to his lips and said, “when this is over, I’ll meet you at the forge”. Arya wants to go there now. Wants to hold him, wants to be held by him, wants to kiss him again, lie with him again, make love with him. She wants to feel alive the way she felt in those stolen hours before the battle. But her knees are too weak to let her stand and she doesn’t even know if the forge is still standing or if it got destroyed during the battle. She doesn’t even know if he survived the battle and that might be the thing that scares her the most.The Night King is dead and Arya is too weak and injured to stand anymore but all she wants are her siblings and Gendry





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Do I have a bachelor thesis to write? yes.  
> Do I have like 2 other fanfictions I need to update? definitely.  
> Is gendrya the first straight ship that gets me excited since I was 14? you can bet on it!  
> So even though I have like a million other things I should be doing this happened.  
> Quick disclaimer. I'm not a native speaker and I'm dyslexic so even though this has been spellchecked and beta-read there might be still some errors. Please either ignore them or tell me so I can correct them. Thank you :)

It’s strange how deafening quiet can be. Strange how only now that the battle cries of the dead and living have stopped Arya is able to hear the ringing in her ears. They are surrounded by death, her and bran, death and shards of ice that had once been the Night King and his generals. Eyes she shut forever.

What does that make her? Arya’s not sure and she’s also not keen on finding out.

Her knees are weak, she hadn’t noticed how exhausted she is, didn’t realize how much the past hours had taken from her. First the fight on the battlements then the chase through the corridors of her home. the chase a horrifying twist of the games she played as a kid. Running through the hallways laughing and playing hide and seek with her brothers, running away from unwanted lessons of stitching and etiquette, running from the cook with stolen sweetbreads hidden in her dress, unknowingly preparing her for the day she would have to run for her life in the very same halls. It’s cruel how childhood memories can become twisted like that.

Arya’s head is throbbing, she’d received one too many blows to the head to simply shrug it off. The cut on her forehead is still bleeding sluggishly, her entire body is aching from overuse, her neck and forearm hurt in the places where the Night King had caught her and squeezed. It’s a strange sensation, like a burn but cold. Arya sways on her feet. With the thrill of the battle over there isn’t much energy left in her to keep standing, she staggers over to her brother’s wheelchair, wanting to be closer to him and falls on her bottom, leaning against the wooden wheel and resting her head against the armrest.

Sitting on the ground in the snow surrounded by corpses she looks up at her brother.

“are you unharmed?”

Bran only nods. He tends to do this a lot now. Nodding and staring.

“did… did you know it would be me? Is that why you gave me the dagger” she lifts her right hand still holding the weapon. She never dropped it not sure if she can anymore it feels like it’s a part of her now.

Her brother smiles at her. Almost. “it was meant to be.”

Arya breathes. And tries to let reality set in.

Earlier – it was probably only moments ago though it feels like days already – she had arrived in the Godswood, seen the wights surrounding her brother and Theon, heard Theon’s battle cry as he charged all while searching for a way to get closer. In the end, she had climbed a nearby tree to drop down into the circle of wights and then lunged. Stealthy and quiet like the cats she used to chase around the red keep. Now all Arya wants is to lay down, find her Jon and Sansa preferably alive and see Gendry again.

Only hours before when the alarm sounded her and Gendry had helped each other dress, she had pressed a hurried kiss to his lips and said, “when this is over, I’ll meet you at the forge”. Arya wants to go there now. Wants to hold him, wants to be held by him, wants to kiss him again, lie with him again, make love with him. She wants to feel alive, feel alive the way she felt in those stolen hours before the battle. But her knees are too weak to let her stand and she doesn’t even know if the forge is still standing or if it got destroyed during the battle. She doesn’t even know if he survived the battle and that might be the thing that scares her the most.

It wasn’t really a battle, was it? It was a massacre and she had stopped it. It's not victory; it doesn’t feel like it. It‘s simply survival.

Arya slumps against her brother's chair there is barely enough energy left in her to keep awake but the head wound and the many lessons of her past tell her that she must not sleep now, that she must stay awake at least for a little longer.

So that’s how Jon finds her maybe a quarter of a mark later. Listing to the side, only bare willpower keeping her from falling over and closing her eyes to sleep.

She hears him before she sees him.

“Bran! Theon” again and again and increasingly desperate the closer his footsteps get. Has no one ever taught Jon how to tread lightly? She’ll have to do that once she can stand on her own again. And then he comes into view and the yelling stops for a moment and Jon rushes towards her with a strangled “Arya!”

He falls to his knees in front of her, pulling her against his chest and kissing her forehead.

“gods Arya it thought you dead! No one had seen you in the courtyard and you were supposed to be on the battlements, and it thought that…” he crushes her against his chest once more and Arya groans as he squeezes her so hard it makes her sore body ache

Jon pulls back holding her up by her shoulders to look at her. “how did you survive, why are you here?”

It is Bran who answers for her before she can sort out what to say, how to answer

“she killed the Night King, just like it was always meant to be. It was her destiny the day she was born. Her road would always lead her to this. She is the bringer of dawn, the Night Wolf.” Bran's voice stoic as ever but maybe there’s a hint of pride as well though right now Arya is too tired to decipher the rare bursts of emotions her brother still shows sometimes.

What she’s definitely noticing is the look of sheer disbelieve that Jon gives her “you… did…” she can basically see the cogs turning in his head, struggling to connect his little baby sister with the hero who stopped the long night. Is that what she is? A Hero?

“I did,” she says voice rough and holds up the valerian steel dagger still clutched in her right hand; it might as well be fused to her skin by now.

“how!”

Arya smiles at him weakly “I snuck up on him and stuck him with the pointy end”

the grin she gets in return is worth the pain in her throat when she speaks and the energy it drains from her.

“can you stand?”

“no, I’m tired an’ cold” the hand not holding the dagger comes up to weakly grasp at his sleeve her speech is getting slurred Arya notices “I want to sleep but I know I shouldn’t”

This seems to alarm her brother; she can guess what her words inflict in him. She’s Arya Underfoot, always quick and full of energy. Seeing her drained and weak must scare him.

 “all right, I’ll carry you then. We must get you to the maester! Bran, can you stay here a little longer? I’ll send someone to bring you back inside as soon as I can.”

Bran gifts them with one of his rare smiles “I’m fine, I want to watch the sun rise anyway.”

“good” Jon nods and something touches her right hand, pries her fingers open. It’s Jon, taking the dagger from her and putting it back into its sheath at her hip. He kisses her head once more as if to make sure he’s still there. Stupid. Of course, he’s still there. She can see him. But then again maybe he wants to make sure that she is still with him.

And then the world moves or more accurately Jon moves Arya, hoists her onto his back and instructs her to hold on.

As they turn to leave, Bran fixes Arya with his stare and says “Arya! Don’t worry. The Stag survived the night.”

Gendry. Arya smiles and nods in gratitude as relive floods her body. She can basically feel the confusion filling Jon, but he turns away and heads towards the exit.

“don’t fall asleep Arya” he murmurs “that’s an order!”

“I’m not sleeping, I need to find Gendry first” she murmurs because being told that he’s still alive simply isn’t enough! But the sway of Jon’s steps is comforting and she’s just so so so tired. Her eyes close on their own accord and the world turns black.

 

The first thing she notices is the quiet voices talking in hushed tones and a warm and callused hand holding her own. It’s warm, she’s warm, there are wet and hot rags wrapped around her neck and arm where the Night King had grabbed her and squeezed. The Night King. Right, she had killed him, stopped him, stopped the massacre.

Arya stays still and carefully categorizes the various aches in her body the way she learned to do in Braavons while blind. Her head is still throbbing though a bit less so than before, she feels less sticky and her skin doesn’t itch from flakes of dried blood so someone must have cleaned her and put her into fresh clothing. A shift most likely from the feel of it. Her ribs hurt a bit just like her legs and feet do but that’s probably simple bruising from falling and overuse. The Night King’s handprints on her throat and left forearm is another thing entirely. They burn and feel cold at the same time the way that frostbite feels like. It hurts and will probably scar just like the mark on Bran’s arm.

Arya opens her eyes. She’s in her chamber in her bed under heavy blankets, Gendry at her bedside holding her hand and Sansa at her desk, her desk which is filled with rolls of parchment. Her and Gendry are talking in whispers while Sansa works. She drinks in the sight of the two of them for a moment and then gently squeezes Gendry’s hand.

The reaction is imminent, his head whips around and the tight expression on his face crumbles with relive “Arya!” her name a sigh on his lips “oh gods I thought… though the maester told us you would be all right, told us it was mostly just exhaustion and to let you sleep but…” he trails off, looking to the side, looking at Sansa who has gotten up from her seat at Arya’s desk and is now standing at the foot of her bed with a look of pure relive on her face

“You defeated the Night King,” she says with pride.

Arya nods and immediately regrets it when a bolt of pain shoots through her head “yes”

A grin overtakes her sisters face, broad and beaming “I knew you could do it. If anyone could, it would be you.” Sansa moves over to stand by her head, leans down and presses a gentle kiss to her temple “there will be a feast later this night, honoring the dead and celebrating the living, I expect you to be there” she doesn’t say “celebrating you” but it is heavily implied so Arya nods, it seems to be the dutiful thing to do

“good. Then I’ll leave you two be for now” Sansa turns o leave and Arya watches her go, wondering.

She turns to Gendry “how long?”

“how long you’ve been asleep? Maybe half a day. It’s close to noon” He gently cups her face with the hand not holding hers “you scared the shit out of me! I was in the courtyard looking for you when Jon comes in, you limp on his back and him screaming for a maester to take a look at his sister. I thought you might have died. I thought I lost you” His voice cracks at the end, sounding small and broken and that just cannot be.

Arya sits up carefully, trying not to dislodge the warm rags on her arm, cups the side of Gendry’s face with her free hand, pulls him closer. She hesitates for a second and then closes the gap between their lips.

His lips are warm and chapped, he lets go of her hand in favor of wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her closer and somewhere in the back of her throat Arya involuntarily makes a small and desperate sound.

They separate for air and he presses his forehead against hers gently “don’t you dare die on me milady, don’t you dare leave me! I’ve already lost you once before, a second time would break me forever.”

His words are desperate, a whispered admission, simple and powerful. She closes her eyes.

“You were the first to leave”

“I know and I will regret that until we are both old and grey. But for the longest time I thought you had died at the red wedding I thought you dead, thought I had failed what I had sworn myself to do, failed to protect you and then you came back into my life and it felt like I could breathe again”

Arya looks into Gendry’s eyes, storm grey meeting sky blue. She wants to stay like this forever.

“I think I love you Gendry”

The shock on his face followed by the softest expression she has ever seen is worth the feeling of bearing hear heart to him, of showing herself to him at her most vulnerable especially when he smiles at her and whispers

“I think I love you too Arya Stark”

A small, broken sound might escape her throat at hearing his whispered admission spoken between the space of their lips. She closes that space and pulls him closer.

 

Later when she had enough of sitting up and had pulled him to lie down next to her with her head cushioned on this chest, listening to the sound of his heart beating, feeling the way he breaths and loving every second of the feeling of him alive and THERE under her, she remembers something.

“Wait, how come you and my sister were in my room when I woke up? Not that I mind but it’s not really considered proper”

Gendry freezes for a second “well apparently the last thing you said before you passed out was that you needed to find me. And your brother confronted me with your words, and I couldn’t lie to him. So, I told him everything”

Arya lifts her head from his chest and stares at him with something like horror because there are things that happened the night before the battle that she would rather not have her brother and sister know, at least not yet. Actually, scratch that, she wants to keep that precious memory between the two of them, cherish it like a treasure and never share it if she thinks about it. “everything?”

“Not everything! Though I think your Sister might have figured that part out by herself which is certainly horrifying!” she thinks his brief look of horror at this admission might mirror her own but then his face becomes soft once more “but I told them of how I knew you before coming to Winterfell and that we were… close”

“And they just… hmm. I thought Sansa cared too much about being proper to let you into my chambers” Arya wonders but then again, they just survived an event of pure horrors and that tends to change people’s perspective on things quite a lot. Also, the days of her lady sister overly caring about being proper seem to be long gone. Maybe she shouldn’t be so surprised after all. That _Jon_ let him join her here is another matter but then again, he might be too caught up in the clean up to notice or care.

“Sansa said since you had asked for me, I might as well be there when you wake up.” And then Gendry’s face turns once again multiple shades of horrified “I think your sister might be thinking about legitimizing me though? Making me a lord? I can’t even read well beyond the numbers and a few letters”

Arya smothers her laugh against his chest.

“Hey, that’s not funny at all!”

But Arya just lifts her head, pecks him on the nose and says, “then you could be my lord, and I could be your lady.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in my own personal fantasy headcanon they survive, Arya kills Cersei, they marry (the Hound cries at the wedding though he will deny that until his dying day and Gendry takes on the Stark name instead of the other way around because Arya will never be anything but a Stark) and then travel the world for a bit until coming back to Winterfell and having bunch of happy and badass children together. the end.
> 
> If you want to you can yell at me on twitter @zeitwaechterin


	2. Arya Stark of Winterfell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if this qualifies as a song, I don't think it does. But this sort of just... happened and now it exists. So enjoy.

 

Arya Stark was just a child of one and ten

When Jon Snow the White Wolf placed Needle in her hand

A sword as small as her but sharp and quick

In her hand deadly and fast as a whip

 

To Kingslanding she went

Lead by her father’s hand

Her father who was betrayed

And killed before her eyes

 

So Arya Stark from Kingslanding fled, the young blacksmith Gendry by her side

Loyal and brave he stood by her as young love would start to bloom

Until he was taken away from her by the red witch and Arya swore to be her doom

 

She traveled with the hound, watched mother and brother get slain

And swore revenge onto house Frey until her dying day

 

So with Sandor Clegane she walked until he could walk no more

Arya left for Braavos and arrived at the house of black and white’s door

The faceless men took her in, told her to cast off her name

And Arya trained until no one she became

 

But in her heart, the lady Arya Stark of Winterfell prevailed

And as she was sent to kill lady crane it was no one who failed

Arya Stark was no one no more

And so she left Braavos for Westeros’s shore

 

The first she killed was Walder Fray and then the traitor's house

The north remembers and winter came, and Arya was the cause

Her next intend was the mad queens head

but as she heard of the White Wolf in the north

of the Starks that returned home, Arya was the fourth

 

but Jon had left for Dragonstone to mine the dragon glass

So Arya helped her sister kill the traitor in their halls

 

Littlefinger met her dagger, the dagger Nightsbane given to her by Bran

And as she stood there with her pack the joy in her heart sang

Soon Jon returned the dragon queen by her side

And in their entourage, her Blacksmith Gendry and Arya’s grin grew wide

 

Young love rekindled, now a woman and man both grown

Two hearts once separated once again made whole

 

But night came fast and as in secret they kissed goodbye

Gendry placed a weapon forged by him in Arya’s hand

They swore each other that come what may

This war their love would withstand.

 

As the undead rose around Winterfell and almost all seemed lost

The red witch stood before Arya and said that though there had been great cost

That Arya would close blue eyes forever as she had prophesied

Arya said not today to death and cast all fear aside

 

And as in the Godswood the Night King stood before her brother bran

Arya sprinted with dagger in hand, faster than ever she ran

With Nightsbane raised up high she lunged at the Night King unaware

But he was quick and turned around and caught her in midair

 

But as he held her by the throat the dagger switched her hand

The night wolf Arya, summers Child would be the winter's end

And as she stood in shards of ice the Night King at her feet

It was known for all to see that she was his defeat

And as the morning came on Winterfell you could hear their call

Arya Stark of Winterfell the bravest hero of them all

 

So all was saved and Arya Stark of Winterfell a lady highborn stood

before the realm before the lords, her head held high and said

I have one wish I have one love, a love of lowborn blood

Don’t let it matter let him take my name let him and I be wed

 

And so, in a fortnight in the Godswood they knelt before the tree

Arya held her blacksmith's hand their love clear for all to see

And by the dragon queen’s decree, Gendry was made a Stark

So Arya Stark of Winterfell would never lose her name

 

The Night Wolf, winter's end, daughter of the north

Lady Arya Stark of Winterfell the savior of the world

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh and yes, I chose to give the valerian steel dagger a name. I thought that if this was part of some chronic it would have a name probably by Arya and Nightsbane seemd fitting

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to you can yell at me on twitter @zeitwaechterin


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